Word Salad

Poetry practice, this writing a poem a day lark,is certainly stretching all my capabilities. I have added in another little challenge for November in a nod to the 30 days of Gratitude people. So my subject must be something for which I give thanks. One gratitude prompt had words on the list. And this suggested dictionaries to me. I have a large Oxford, an etymological and a rhyming dictionary on my book shelves. Not to mention online resources in a pinch when I am feeling too frail to lift the weighty tomes. I love dictionaries in all forms.

For an added challenge I decided to try a hithertoo unknown poetry form called the octameter. Its invention is attributed to Shelley A. Cephas and I found it on Linda J. Wolff’s blog Write An Octometer.

The octometer is two stanzas of eight lines each. Each line must be five syllables long. And there is a complicated rhyme scheme, too. It feels a bit like doing a crossword puzzle. The poem references two writing warm up exercises I use in my Word Alchemy workshops. See if you can guess which!

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Published by sojourningsmith

This blog is a record of a writing journey.
Having lived in three countries (to date) I must have what my mother calls 'itchy feet.' Perhaps that makes me an experienced sojourner, someone who stays temporarily in places. But I am also someone deeply interested in acquainting myself with the soul of that place during my sojourn.
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